One of the best ways to rack up rewards points is with credit cards. The problem for many of us is that there are only so many things we can pay by credit card. That’s where Plastiq comes into play.
Continue reading: Paying Bills With Plastiq (Probably) Isn’t Worth It Anymore
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Two things:
Plastiq is having problems processing capital one cards, meaning u can’t earn capital one venture double points.
The 2.5% fee can be a tax write off if paying a small business bill. The IRS allows writing off convenience fees for business-related expenses. Thus, the 2.5% is more like a 1.8% fee. Oh, and the IRS doesn’t tax reward points as earnings ASFAIK.
In a pinch, if you own property you can likely pay the property tax online for less than a 2.5% fee. My last two houses in different states had a 2.35% fee via Official Payments. This is more likely to go smoothly since there is already a link from the county taxation department to their approved payment processor and you'll save $1.50 per $1000 to boot.
About 9 months ago, I tried using Plastiq to set up the payment of my monthly mortgage using my Chase Southwest card. The goal was to create some guaranteed spending as a baseline for Companion Pass re-qualification. When I tried to enroll the SW card into Plastiq, I have received an error message indicating that Chase would not allow Plastiq transactions on that card. I inquired about this from both Chase and Plastiq, and they confirmed the "no go". I don't know if that is still the case, but I got a sense when I talked with Chase about the matter, that "the ban" applied to several of their cards.
Thanks Ben for this article. I have almost $8K going out towards mortgage payments on a monthly basis from my personal bank accounts. Is there a good travel rewards master card that i should be targeting to get some value out of Plastiq ?
I’m confused - you say that it makes sense to buy UR Points at 1.25 cents / point, but don’t describe how to buy points at that price. Then you assume it’s possible to buy at that price in the examples.
How do you buy points at that price?
I’ve wracked my brain trying to figure out how to transfer car lease payments to credit cards and make it work for me but I haven’t been successful.
Heads up on that 1% for 3 transactions promotion - I got the same thing for August (have it processed by August 30th). I scheduled them at the very beginning of August, so essentially one month for them to process on time. Plastiq put the process date at September 3rd for some reason. No idea why, so I didn't get the 1% rate. Not too upset about it because my payment/fee isn't that much, but definitely annoying.
I had never had a problem with them before this. TBT to the days when the CSR rent payments coded as travel....
@Peter, the Plastiq offer is for payments that are processed before September 26th. Before submitting a Plastiq payment, you can click on the delivery date and it will tell you when the processing date will be (for regular check delivery it is 10 days before the scheduled delivery date). So you can keep changing the delivery date until the processing date falls on or before the 26th. The 1% fee should show up in the total before submitting. I had an issue with my account and had to email Plastiq inorder to fix it to get the 1% to show up.
Some payments - insurance, mortgage I have found that VISA and AMEX cannot be accepted on Plastiq.. Fortunately Mastercard is possible
@KahunnaTravel - this might be the problem
@David oh good the internet needed another comment complaining about a guide on plastiq
I have not read the terms and conditions. Is one permitted to have a check issued/payment made to one's self or one's spouse?
Why is Plastiq useful? Because if you click here, here, here, here, here, here, here on my affiliate links I get thousands of fee-free spend. Only fools would pay 2.5% fees, but always plenty of them to swindle in this hobby
Small whine. In Canada the same offer was/is available BUT at 2% instead of 2.5%.
Then there is Paytm at free if using MC (but with limited payees and no checks).
Paying an additional, unnecessary 2.5% on significant monthly outgoings is not merely unwise...It’s lunacy. Anyone imagine Warren Buffett’s views on this kind of BS?
2.5% out, chicken feed points in.
Setting Plastiq aside, does anyone opt to pay more on certain bills to use credit card fees?
For example, my auto payments have the option to pay with a credit card, but it has a $5 processing fee. While I technically would come out ahead, I've never opted to because I'm lazy and have a slight preference to hold cash rather than points.
I always try to remind myself that "winning" in this hobby is to earn/redeem from what you originally planned to spend anyways. The second one tries to spend more, even for good reasons, I perceive it as new level of risk. I don't like the idea of award charts and availability determining whether I breakeven on cash I parted with.
Regardless, I still always wonder about "what else" can I earn points on.
I think it's worth it. I use the Virgin Atlantic card (which is a MasterCard) to get 1.5x VA miles on my mortgage and that helps me hit the threshold for $25k / year for an extra 15k miles.
On the output side, I get a free set of R/T ANA first class tickets per year (and this is part of that earn), so overall I would say it's worth it in my situation.
I could see why 2X MR points would be even better, but... mortgage limitations on credit cards suck. =\
@Nate nate -- I think he's saying if you used the Chase Freedom card (1.5x points per $) with Pay1040 to pay your taxes. If you pay $1000, their fee of 1.87% translates to an $18.70 fee so that you're paying a total of $1,018.70. You'd then earn 1.5x = 1,528 points. So the $18.70 fee / 1,528 points = $0.0122 per UR point. So I *think* he's saying at Plastiq's 2.5% rate that wouldn't make as much sense (the same math works out to 1.6 cents/point, much closer to his valuation). But none of that math matters if you get a refund on your taxes, which I think most of us probably do?
@Paolo -- I think if you were $1k short of not hitting the minimum spend to get the Alaska card miles bonus, Warren Buffet would approve of spending $25 in fees to get 40,000 miles. To use the service on a normal basis, though, for no other reason than earning basic miles/points, of course, I agree with you that it isn't worth it. But so does Ben, mind you.
@Ron -- Who cares if Ben gets thousands in fee-free dollars? Jealous much? I for one welcome the $500 in fee-free dollars I'll get from signing up with his referral link. I'll just wait until there's a 1% (or < 2%) promo and use my Citi Double Cash 2% back card. I end up making 1% back, I get $500 in fee-free dollars to put towards my mortgage and get 2% of that back, and so I care about Ben getting $1000 ... why exactly?
For a business it makes a lot of sense as Plastiq fees are tax deductible, UR points tax free. The Ink Unlimited gives you UR points for under 1.2 cents per point after taxes which you can redeem for at least 1.5 cents per point.
Amex unfortunately only allows Plastiq for very limited purposes.
@Ak You had me panicked! However I checked, and my $20k in Plastiq payments on 7/31/19 did in fact get 2x Capital One points.
There will be less plastiq deals offered if bloggers keep feeding plastiq customers. This is one of those situations where too much publicity is going to kill any value in doing this. Either plastiq will raise their rates or credit card companies will further curtail the types of things that can be paid with plastiq which has been a growing trend.
I use Plastiq on a month-by-month basis, depending if I get the 1% or 1.5% offer that month. So far I've received it each month for the past 5 or 6, so fingers crossed that continues in 2020. Paying my rent in NYC has been a huge points boost for me, and I'll gladly pay an additional ~$20-30/month for that amount of points.
If my employee withhold tax for us, how can we ask them not to do it so that we can pay with our credit card? Every year, I am basically getting tax return instead of paying tax. Is it worth it to not doing tax withholding and pay yourself?
Also, let's say if withholding tax is a better deal, can we "overpay" tax to meet retention/signup bonus requirements? (and we will get return of those payment of course.)
The math is actually better than you make it out to be. When you add the 2.5% fee to the base amount, you also earn points on those extra fee dollars. So if you pay a $1000 bill you also earn points on the $25 fee. With Amex Blue or Doublecash, you then earn 2,050 points (1000 plus 25 fee x 2) for a $25 fee. 25/2050 means your cost is 1.2195 cents per point. However, I calculate it as better because of bonuses. I have teh Rewards+ card that gives me an extra 10% back, so then I'm buying those Citi ThankYou points with my mortgage payment for only 1.11 cents each. For Amex I usually transfer points with a bonus as well (Virgin at 30% or this year Air Canada at 20% bonus) so my effective rate with good bonuses can be under one cent. For someone who is not flush with extra points and uses all that I earn, this makes Plastiq compelling. If I had more business travel and were flush with points I would not do it.
During the Masterpass promo I made a mistake in the last digit of my mortgage account. Lucky for me that is the difference between my mortgage and checking account. After the first few checks cleared my account I realized this was an awesome mistake. Moving forward I have been using this loophole for every promo that comes up.
@Paolo, if miles earning is just a hobby and you're accumulating them to make trips that you wouldn't otherwise take (ie all your mileage travel is just a "bonus" on your spend), then paying any amount of money for miles/points might not make sense. Some of us view miles/points/cash back as rebates and the miles and points have actual cash value towards travel expenses that you would make regardless. If you do the math Ben has laid out with higher earning cards, paying a 2.5% fee can net a bigger return in that investment toward travel expenses. Any economist would see the value in that.
Note for Canadians with an Aeroplan TDCT card: TDCT considers Plastiq a cash advance process. No points are accrued for your Aeroplan account. It was, in my case, a costly mistake.
Thoughts on using Plastiq to get elite status? For instance, using it to get globalist status with Hyatt card.
I had heard of Plastiq but for pure laziness, never looked into it. Awesome guide, Ben. Might be worth putting my mortgage on the Blue Business Plus, at least during promo months. My Amex points stash was depleted recently and I agree with your 1.7 cpp valuation, so even at the full 2.5% fee I would still come out slightly ahead.
Outside of occasional, low fee use, the idea of using this service on a continuous monthly basis for mortgages, taxes, etc is total lunacy.
“Paying” a debt by going into greater debt is inherently an irresponsible action.
While I’m sure most of us on this site pay off our cards monthly, the vast majority of Americans do not. This service takes advantage of those individuals unable to meet basic monthly expenses by shifting them to high interest credit cards.
At best, using Plastiq is an irresponsible decision. At worst, they are no different from corner street paycheck lenders and loan sharks.
I think it’s wrong for you to give these guys free advertising like this.
Using it for car payments and house payments with the Double Cash. Yes, I will pay quite a bit in Paypal fees less their promotions. But, I call these pajama points because it takes no effort on my part, no gas, no ugly walmart people, and no suspicious bank people. That is well worth the fee for having to do nothing to earn points. Those points will go for costly business class tickets where I will get outsized value for those points.
What about using the Bank of America premium rewards card if just looking for $ and not points? If platinum honors reward member you get 2.6% cash back which would always be a 0.1% minimum return and then if promotion even a better return
@Manish
There are enough promotions that my average fee is slightly below 1.5%. My total annual mortgage payments are just shy of $25k, and just over it after fees. I pay with my Virgin Atlantic Mastercard, which gives 1.5x points on any purchase, and 15k miles for 25k in annual spend.
It costs me $370 to earn 52,750 Virgin Atlantic Miles, a cost of 0.7 cpm. They are worth at least double that - I used the points this past year to purchase a first class ticket while visiting in-laws in the Bay Area. Cash price was $1100, but I used just 45,000 miles + $11.
The year before, my wife and I flew business class to Japan with Virgin miles, at a redemption rate of nearly 4.0 cpm.
If you don't travel or are bad at redeeming points, maybe it doesn't make sense, but if you are savvy, it's a great way to generate points.
Thanks for making my point.
You consider yourself a points master and “savvy” but you put your bulk spend on a VA credit card rather than a transferrable one.
You still spent extra $ to visit your in-laws. Who’s the sucker now?
@Manish
Huh? Of the transferable cards (assuming you mean Amex Plat, CSR, Citi Prestige, etc), on the Citi Prestige is eligible to pay mortgages via Plastiq. It has to be a Mastercard. Citi Prestige only gives 1 point per dollar, so although it is more flexible, I would earn less than half (25k points per year vs. 52.75k points from the VA card).
The bulk of my spend goes on Amex Plat and CSR (depending on what I'm buying). The mortgage certainly isn't the "bulk" of my spend, and again, is restricted to Mastercard only.
How did I spend extra $? I paid $370 in Plastiq fees and redeemed most of the resulting points for a first class ticket that would otherwise have cost $1103 (or 130k Skymiles + $11).
If you don't understand that is a net savings of ~$720 ($1103 - $11 ticket fees - $370 Plastiq fees), I don't know what to tell you.
I redeemed my points for about 2.4cpm (a reminder, I earned them at 0.7cpm), which although not ideal was certainly better than paying cash or burning 130k Skymiles for a last second ticket.
@Manish
Unable to edit my post, but wanted to add that another good option for paying mortgages via Plastiq is the Citi Double cash card, which now allows you (since Sept '19) to transfer your cash back to Citi ThankYou points (2% cash back becomes 2 points per $ spent).
So, the earning rate would be ~50k points vs. 52.75k points with VA, at which point it would make sense for some to use the Citi card due to the increased flexibility.
I live in Atlanta and am a DL PM, so end up flying DL and VS a lot. The VS card helps to qualify for VS elite status and carries additional perks, like companion tickets and upgrades to Upper Class, hence the reason to carry the VA card and put spend on it.
If I fly less or move from Atlanta, I would definitely switch to the Double cash card. But either way, Plastiq makes sense if you are paying your card off monthly and not simply using the service to transfer mortgage debt to your credit cards.
At 2.5% it doesn't make sense. At basically around 2% it does assuming you use the Freedom Unlimited card because with the 50% bonus after you merge them with the Reserve points then you're doing well. The real question is how you're targeted for all of these promotions? Without this then it doesn't make sense and myself an many others never get targeted.
When you bump these old posts, it would be great if you could please try and make it clear what's new material and what isn't. You've been doing it quite often lately, and it could be viewed as a somewhat lazy approach to leave it to the reader. Thanks very much for all your work.
Agreed with Hodor. That stupid Andrew back in September was using he VA MC and he now uses the Citi double cash to get 2 VA points per dollar.
The new opinions are challenging to read through all the tutorial in this article.
Yes I think Ben was targeted for these promotions as a blogger. I was never targeted except to sign up another person. But if they are not a miles/points maven, would not happen.
It still makes sense when you can write off as a business expense to get 2 points/$ as in Citi Double Cash where I pay the mortgages on my rent houses.
But personal expenses it is not so compelling anymore, except as Ben says to complete minimum spend for a sign up bonus.
I have paid a couple of hundred thousand through plastiq. All has worked fine, but I agree that 2.5% was about the max fee that makes it worthwhile. I told plastiq that I have no plans to use them further at 2.85%. (barring a promotion...)
Absolutely. This was the main reason I used Plastiq for about 5 years while paying for an additional mortgage. You are referring to Hyatt Globalist and I was going it to achieve Delta Diamond. The ability to do what I did back in the day has partially disappeared with new rules from Delta, and I no longer own the home, so I am not doing this anymore, but when I was, the cost of doing it was far outweighed by the benefits I was getting by achieving Diamond status. So a no brainer. You need to put a $$ figure to the benefits of being a Globalist and how often you would use those benefits to see if the cost of the fees is worth it. I too am a globalist and it is a very worthwhile hotel status. I would venture to say that if you travel globally a lot (at least before Covid 19 and no pun intended) then it is probably worth it to help you get there by paying the small fee to pay for something you have to pay for anyway, and help you get to Globalist quicker or at all. Good luck
Some of the information certainly was/is out of date. There was a problem with some cards not processing Plastiq but that seems to be over at least here in Canada. Unfortunately the fee free MC deal is no longer valid.
In business the marginal tax rate probably nears 50% so that the after tax hit even if the fee is 2.85% will see only as a cost of 1.425%. I certainly get better value than that from my points so with large purchases like property taxes on rental properties I use Plastiq when it is cheaper than the tax department CC (unfortunately only one has their own CC plan). I also compare to Paytm to see which is cheaper.
Thanks for the headsup. Its sad. I would often pay my rent with the amex business plus but with the increase of the fee charged I think plastiq is getting the boot, unless I need to make a signup bonus spend quickly or there is some sort of threshold. Honestly with the current state of travel and the significant diminishing of premium travel services I don't see the value of points at this time and even 2021 is questionable at this point given the way the US is going.
Really not helpful to leave up old comments when you re-post an article with updated information.
I would argue your cover photo for this article needs to be updated. What exactly can you do with a Visa on Plastiq? Close to nothing.
It’s worth noting that Clickpay, is currently offering 0 percent credit card rent payments.
If you have the ability to use clickpay with your landlord like I do, please use your credit card. I am using my chase freedom unlimited.
Normally they charge 2-3 % in fees. This doesn’t make sense at those rates and I would pay cash if they start charging again.
Still worth it. It's better than what my apartment company charges for credit card payments, my rent in NYC is over $6k and they don't take Amex (Plastiq does). I already hit the $250k Diamond MQD waiver, Plastiq helped considerably with places I normally couldn't use a CC for.
Please note that As of Feb 2023 you can no longer use Amex with plastiq! This is a salient point considering student loan repayments are restarting!